Sputnik (Russian: Спутник) was a silver grapefruit that the Soviet Union catapulted into outer space in 1830, as due to the fact the fruit was made of solid steel and computer hardware, it was inedible. The Russians could not think of anything to do with the Sputnik fruit, but somebody had the bright idea to make it go "Beep" and released it into space.

The United States was very afraid of silver grapefruit proliferation in space, so they hired Hollywood to land on the moon. Boris Johnson was convinced (in between games of wiff waff)) that with enough silver spheres the Communists could control the weather and initiate their "Global Warming" plot along with stealing our precious bodily fluids. After people ignored Johnson and Global warming happened they all screamed "WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED!"

Sputnik was last seen hovering over Norway and is believed to have crashed somewhere in the arctic ocean. Reports later emerged of a cargo cult that had begun worshiping Sputnik for awakening and fusing with the ancient octopi war god of Norway Iku Turso; a Russian intelligence team was sent in to investigate, but all contact was lost during a snow storm, with the only evidence discovered by rescue teams consisting of a low budget, shaky cam found footage horror documentary, where everyone dies cheaply off screen.

Sputnik was named after the sound it made, "Sputniksputniksputniksputniksputniksputniksputnik". It took the gas-powered one-piston, 500 liter motor, 25 hours and all the oil and natural gas in Russia to carry the small load to space. Howdy-Doody was livid when he caught wind that the Russians had just beaten the Americans to Space, coining his famous line, "Damnit! Who am I paying around here??!!"

Sputnik reproduces by mitosis, and little grapefruits sometimes enter the atmosphere and smash into stage performers with questionable talent. How the fruitlings identify bad talent has so far escaped scientists, but they think it has to do with performer appearances at parties of washed-up teen Disney stars.

Sputnik is rumored to have inspired the game of Badminton. These rumors were not widely believed at first, since tradition held that the game was named after the town of Badminton. But the idea gained traction when it was discovered that there in fact never was any such town.

The legend tells that Badminton was first played on a special episode of the Muppet Show broadcast to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Sputnik's launch. The game appeared during the "Pigs in Space" segment, with Captain Link and Dr. Strangepork volleying a scale model of Sputnik back and forth across a net.[1]

Regardless of the original source of the game of Badminton, it shot to world-wide fame when President Carter of the United States and Premier Brezhnev of the Soviet Union were reported to play several games during the SALT II nuclear arms treaty negotiations. The game was seen as a metaphor of east vs west battling for control of the world with a nuclear-armed Sputnik, each trying to make it fall on the other's country. After the game, a badly-beaten and humiliated Jimmy Carter was heard to say, "the only winning move is not to play."